Essays & News

  From the high deserts of Chile to the nickel-rich islands of Indonesia and the lithium hills of Zimbabwe, developing nations are no longer content to be mere pits and pipes for the industrial world. Instead, they are leveraging soaring demand for critical minerals to rewrite investment rules and assert sovereign control over their geological […]

  S&P and Fitch upgraded Argentina. MSCI still won’t even open a review. What is MSCI pricing?   On June 23, MSCI released the results of its 2026 Market Classification Review and, once again, declined to open a consultation on Argentina. This was neither a downgrade nor new restrictions. It was simply a refusal to start the […]

  A drone loaded with explosives was found at Leipzig-Halle airport in Germany. It was close to a Ukrainian aircraft that was to transport military equipment to Ukraine. The drone carried explosives PETN and Semtex, which failed to detonate on impact. It seems obvious that it was destined to blow up the Ukrainian airplane, and […]

  Ein neues Kapitel für buchausgabe.de beginnt. In den 1990er-Jahren legte Michael Kastner das Fundament für das, was später als buchausgabe.de zu einem Pionierort für liberale Nischenliteratur werden sollte. Als er im März 2025 plötzlich starb, drohte diesem Herzensprojekt das Aus. Doch seine Frau Gabriele Weisselberg führt sein Lebenswerk nun mit demselben Engagement weiter – […]

  The global race for critical minerals – lithium, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements – has intensified geopolitical competition. It is tempting to see the G7 and BRICS as two cohesive, rival blocs, each pursuing a fully formed mineral strategy. That picture is misleading. Instead, what we observe are two loosely affiliated constellations of […]